


Hearing the Score

by casey270



Series: The Caged Bird's Song [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Drug Use, Gaslighting, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 18:34:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14526648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casey270/pseuds/casey270
Summary: Sometimes giving up isn't so badI knew I couldn't stay away from this 'verse.





	Hearing the Score

Tommy floats with the drugs he’s been given, sometimes totally in the moment with Lecter, sometimes feeling and seeing only the fuzzy clouds of his perception holding him in place. The only thing that gets by the muddle of his brain is music, coming from somewhere in the background. He’s not sure if he’s actually hearing it or if it’s only in his own head. It’s hard and mournful, empty and still soulful, and all the things Tommy thinks good music should be.

Walking counterpoint to the music is Lecter’s voice. He’s not picking up all the words, but he hears enough to know it’s telling him over and over that together they can find the way to make him good, to make him all that he was ever meant to be. The words go on and on, covering him, insulating him, at times even suffocating him. The whole of his world narrows down to that one voice accompanied by the music, and there’s no fucking way he can fight his way past it.

The words tell him that he’s spent his whole life so far fighting a battle he could never win, that he could never find a way on his own to be the kind of good that he needs to be. They tell him that he needs someone else, someone who can see him clearly, know him better than he knows himself, to help him find the right path to the goodness he craves. All he needs is someone to guide him, someone who can reach right into his fucking core and help mold him into the thing of beauty and purity that’s buried there.

The voice makes it all seem so simple in his brain. The words sound so goddamn true and logical. The idea of letting go and letting someone else help him to be what he was always meant to be, letting someone else show him how to finally live his life without the tension and the constant panic over doing the right thing, seems so fucking right. The thought of turning all responsibility over to someone else, letting the Doctor carry Tommy’s burdens of just living long enough for him to catch his breath and get his head straightened out, sounds like the best goddamn idea he’s had in his whole life. Whatever comes, whatever he does, is all on Lecter, not Tommy. All the anxiety that comes with choice can just fuck off while Tommy spends a few days or weeks or years listening to the voice and the music that are now his whole world. 

Tommy feels the first effects of the drugs wearing off at the same time he feels a hand caress his cheek, but now he has no desire to fight back or escape. Instead, he turns his face into the contact, looking for the comfort that’ll help shape him into what he’s being promised he’ll become. The hand doesn’t hold the warmth or emotion of skin to skin contact, though. There’s something false about it, and it takes Tommy more than a few minutes to work out what it is. The hand touching him is encased in a glove; there’s a barrier of latex keeping him from Lecter. Some dark part of his mind that would normally scare the shit out of him with its twisted reasoning tells him that it’s to be expected. He hasn’t proven he’s worthy of the the doctor’s touch yet. He hasn’t been good enough. 

He doesn’t stress or panic over it. He knows that if he does what Lecter’s words tell him to do, that someday he’ll be good enough to stand before the doctor with no barriers between them. He can be good enough to wait for that day.


End file.
